Duality
by bloodstar
Summary: Some souls are meant to be lovers for all eternity. Some, however, are meant only to be enemies. When a new serial killer blows into town, Beastboy discovers exactly what that means. (Part of Rei Ronin’s Prophecies Universe.)
1. Reflexions

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own the Titans, obviously. Nor do I own Soothsayer or Kenkaku; they belong to Rei Ronin. Green Destiny belongs to whoever owns the rights to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

**SPOILERS:** Up to Aftershock 2.

**SUMMARY:** Some souls are meant to be lovers for all eternity. Some, however, are meant only to be enemies. When a new serial killer blows into town, Beastboy discovers exactly what that means. (Part of Rei Ronin's Prophecies Universe.)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This story takes place after Rei Ronin's "Waves of Fate", and occurs at the same time as "Rolling the Dice" by the same author, so go read those first, 'cause they're good and this story won't make much sense otherwise. You can find them in the C2 community in my profile.

Also, anything in **bold** is a reference point, so kindly make your way to the end of the chapter for a translation and/or explanation. Okay, enough with the babbling. Read and enjoy.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Reflexions**_

Somewhere in the distance the sun had just set, softly caressing the land in its last golden rays as it relinquished its hold on the sky for the day.

That night as the last traces of sunlight faded, Beast Boy remained perched on a rock on the west end of Titans' Tower in a manner vaguely reminiscent of an old poodle, diligently waiting for its master to come home, even though its hope for such had died long ago. With sad green eyes gazing over the horizon under a head of shaggy green hair, pointed ears drooping so low that they almost touched his slumped shoulders, it was safe to venture that the boy was depressed. The reason for his current mood lay innocently on the ground next to him, well within his reach, but gratefully out of his eyesight.

Green Destiny.

A **jian** granted to him by a prophecy that didn't really have all that much to do with him anyway.

With his shapeshifting ability, he'd never really thought to have a weapon outside of his own body, after all, the average criminal had a small problem with a full-sized T-Rex breathing down their neck, but he had to admit that he rather liked wielding Green Destiny. It felt warm and natural in his hands, and when he fought with it, it felt like shapeshifting, like instinct, and it played well with his spirit. Somehow, it made him feel more confident, and somewhat content, like a piece that had been missing had returned…

…But sometimes, when the sunlight caught it at just the right angle, the usually silver blade would shine gold and it would remind him of her, of Terra. And when the curving silver designs carved into the blade danced in the sun's golden light, intertwining with the green lacquer underneath, it would remind the more poetic side of his soul of what they could have had, and suddenly he wouldn't feel so good anymore.

Sighing, he picked up a smooth stone and skipped it over the still waters of the bay. He didn't think he could take this waiting. It would be another month before Kenkaku could even think about reviving Terra and the anticipation was killing him. All he really wanted right now was to see her again, and not her stone encrusted form. He wanted her flesh and blood and standing by his side right now.

The way he was feeling at the moment, a month might as well be forever…

Suddenly, Beastboy felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. If he were in cat form right now, all the fur on his back would bristle and he would be hissing as he sensed danger. Wrapping his fingers unconsciously around Green Destiny, he tensed the muscles in his legs and cocked his ears, listening to the near-silent footsteps drawing closer…and closer…

"YAAAH!"

In one fluid movement, Beastboy pushed himself to his feet and spun around with Green Destiny slicing through the air towards his opponent…

He recognised the intruder milliseconds too late to stop the blade from piercing her skin, but fortunately, early enough to stop it from lopping her whole arm off.

Soothsayer winced as Beastboy pulled away his sword, the blade somehow causing more pain on the way out than it did going in.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry," he said, guilt and concern etched on his face as he absently wiped the blood off his sword on his leg before sheathing it on his back.

Soothsayer fingered the tear in her sleeve, staring at the bleeding wound blankly until Beastboy's gloved hand blocked the view as he applied pressure to stop the blood flow.

"Are you okay? We need to get this fixed," he said, leading her back towards the tower.

"It's okay, Beastboy," Soothsayer grimaced. "It looks worse than it is. It will heal on its own."

"But-"

"Besides, you wouldn't want Robin to catch you after you skipped his training session tonight, would you?"

Beastboy's eyes widened. He hadn't thought of that. Robin wouldn't hesitate to rip him a new one for that…well, at least not until he got wrapped up enough in tracking the military weapons and/or making out with Starfire to forget about it.

"One second," he said, holding up a finger as he reached for his communicator. Flipping it open, he scrolled through the options, pulled up the tracking screen, and located Robin's signal. It looked like he was with Star in the fifth floor evidence room. Perfect.

"Come on. I know how to get around Robin." Beastboy put away the communicator and grabbed Soothsayer's hand, pulling her towards the front door. "We're gonna fix that whether you like it or not."

She rolled her eyes, but acquiesced nonetheless, walking into the tower.

As Beastboy moved to close the door behind her, his eyes skimmed over the beach again, searching the darkness for whatever it was that still had his hackles up. Finding nothing but the usual scattering of rocks on the sand, Beastboy shrugged, dismissing his feeling as pure paranoia, and followed Soothsayer to the elevator.

Had he looked a little further to the left for just a bit longer, he would have noticed the pair of eyes slinking off into the night.

* * *

An unnaturally green house lizard skittered up a wall in the hallway and cautiously peered around the corner. Blinking his bulbous black eyes, it detached itself from the wall and dropped to the ground, landing lightly on two human feet. 

"Coast is clear. C'mon," Beastboy whispered, tip-toeing down the hall towards the medical bay, practically humming the 'Mission: Impossible' theme song under his breath. Soothsayer followed behind him with decidedly less stealth, clearly amused by the whole thing.

Beastboy breathed a sigh of relief as the infirmary door swished closed behind them. They made it without any sign of Robin and the impending lecture of doom.

"What are you two doing?"

Beastboy let out a very unmanly shriek as the Boy Wonder suddenly appeared out of nowhere, a knowing smirk on his face.

"R-Robin! Heh heh, w-what's up?" he stammered, shrinking under Robin's gaze.

"Friend Soothsayer!" Starfire gasped as she hovered down from the ceiling, where she'd been holding Robin out of sight. "You are damaged?"

Robin turned away from the cowering changeling and followed Starfire's line of sight to the long red trail of blood on the sleeve of Soothsayer's white shirt.

"What happened?" he asked, gently lifting her arm to see the wound better.

Soothsayer glanced at Beastboy. "It was an accident," she replied. "Beastboy was going to help me patch it up."

Robin raised a dubious eyebrow at that, sensing that they were hiding something. "Fine. BB, come see me in the training room when you're done," he ordered, fixing him with a firm glare, before walking towards the door. "You coming, Star?"

Beastboy turned to Soothsayer as Robin and Starfire vacated the room. The seer just stared back at him steadily for a few moments before hopping onto the nearest bed.

"You gonna fix this, or what?"

"Duuude," Beastboy said in disbelief, throwing his arms in the air. "How come you didn't tell Robin what happened? I, like, totally skewered your arm just now!"

"Hardly." She rolled up her sleeve, making a face at the bloodstain. "See? It's only a shallow cut."

"But still, I shouldn't have attacked you like that," he insisted, moving to get a first-aid kit from a cabinet. "I coulda killed you!"

"I'm not dead, am I?" she pointed out. A fact that fell on deaf ears as the changeling rambled on.

"Dude, Kaku was supposed to show me how, but then that mission came up and he ran off with Cyborg to HIVE, and…" He trailed off thinking about what he just said. He blinked, and then burst into a fit of giggles. Soothsayer rolled her eyes. "But seriously, dude, I am so not gonna touch Green Destiny until Kenkaku gets back." But even as he said that, he knew it wasn't true.

Soothsayer was silent, seemingly lost in her own world for a few moments.

"I don't think that's wise," she said, finally.

Beastboy looked up from his nursing, a curious eyebrow raised.

"I sense that there is more to your fate with Green Destiny than we realised," she continued slowly. "I'll have to meditate to get a fix on the prophecy."

He smirked mischievously. "This another excuse not to pay attention in Math class?"

She smiled innocently back at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Beastboy snorted as he stuck a long white bandage on her arm, sealing the wound from the air. "There. All done," he announced, unrolling her sleeve. A large drop of sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. The big red bloodstain had imprinted on the other side of her sleeve making a reflected twin. A butterfly effect. "Heh heh. I think I owe you a new shirt."

* * *

Somewhere in the heart of Jump City, about two blocks away from the police station, a coroner wheeled a black body bag into the morgue. The only sound in the empty corridor was the echo of the gurney's squeaky wheels and the squeal of his sneakers on the freshly polished linoleum. Bypassing the ME's office and an ancient soda machine, he pushed the gurney through the double doors at the end of the corridor, into the examination room. 

The nightshift medical examiner was hunched over a laptop in the corner, alternately tapping at random keys on the keyboard and shaking a handheld laser scanner as if expecting a pink leprechaun to jump out at any moment and show him how it worked.

"Heya, Steve," the coroner greeted as he rolled the gurney to a stop next to an empty examination table. "Twenty-first century tryin' to kick your ass again?"

The medical examiner raised a choice finger in response.

The coroner chuckled as he unzipped the body bag and shifted the body onto the silver examination table.

"I got another one for ya."

"No, really? I thought you were here for my charm and hot body," Steve murmured absently, still fiddling with the computer.

The coroner scoffed, ambling over to look over the ME's shoulder. Steve barely spared him a glare over his shoulder, before clicking a few more keys on the computer.

It bleeped angrily at him.

"God-damnit, what the hell is wrong with you?" he yelled at the screen. It beeped at him again. "'Error message 57'. Yeah, that's _real_ helpful. That explains _everything_, don't it? Worthless piece-a crap…"

"Look, just…" the coroner shoved Steve out of the way and started typing.

The computer flashed another error message followed merrily by its partner in crime, the illegal operation window.

Steve snorted. "Hooray for the technologically savvy," he droned dryly.

The coroner rolled his eyes and flipped the power switch off and on. "Tried and true method."

"Heh, right." The medical examiner wandered over to the new corpse, slapping some new white latex gloves on his hands. "What'cha got for me, Dave?"

Dave turned and leaned back on the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "Male. Around seventeen or eighteen, I'd say. No ID. Lividity says he was moved a couple hours post mortem. He just went into Rigor, so my best guess is six hours ago." He crossed his legs and gestured to the body with his head. "Check out his forehead," he said, unnecessarily, as the ME reached out to part the long black hair that obscured the victim's face.

"Similar markings to Ms. Glitter over there," Steve commented. He pulled out a pair of scissors and cut open the victim's t-shirt. He nodded his head as he found what he was looking for. "Same four scratches over the left pectoral."

The coroner strolled over and peered over the ME's shoulder. "Looks like we got a serial on our hands."

"It's not a serial until there's a third body," Steve corrected.

Dave rolled his eyes. "Picky bastard. Say, did you ever figure out what the message on the girl's head said?"

Steve was busying himself with a little white sponge, cleaning the dried blood off the symbols etched in the dead boy's flesh. When he finished, he stuffed the sponge in a plastic evidence bag and set it aside.

"That's what the scanner's for," he said. "The city'd rather torment me than spring for a human translator that'll keep this on the DL."

Dave glanced back at the offending machine. "Well, it's on now. Let's break it out and see what it says, already."

"Don't you have other bodies to pick up?"

"Nope," Dave answered with a cheeky grin.

Steve sighed. "Fine." He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in a separate evidence bag before pulling on a fresh pair and walking over to the other occupied table. "You set up the program, I'll prep the body."

Steve carefully peeled back the thin white sheet that covered the body, barely even disturbing a golden hair on her head, as Dave fiddled with that infernal machine. Like every other time, her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling still heavily painted in that gold-plated film that he knew coated her entire body. She'd been in here for the past two days, but somebody had yet to claim her. Steve shook his head. It was sad.

Suddenly, Dave materialised by his side wielding a T-shaped hunk of plastic and circuits. A white light glowed dimly on the wider end of the machine.

"You know how that works?"

"It looks like the scanner down at the supermarket, how hard can it be?"

That said, Dave held it over her forehead and pressed a button on its underside. A dozen streaks of white laser light spilled from the top of the machine and caressed the dead girl's skin, its beams sinking into the grooves of split flesh that made up the symbol.

Behind them, the laptop played an encouraging series of beeps as Dave clicked the scanner off.

"That's it," he announced, moving away from the body and towards the computer. "Now we just have to…"

Dave trailed off as he started off the translation program.

At the centre of the window was a large digital printout of the symbol. All around the edges, the program scrolled through various symbols from every language imaginable, though Steve had a pretty good idea which one the message was written in.

Finally, the flashing symbols came to a stop, and a translation into English appeared on the screen.

Dave raised an eyebrow. "_Gold_?" He streamed extremely disappointed as he turned back to the body and took in the shiny colour spray-painted on her skin. "Well, duh."

* * *

**REFERENCE POINT: **

**Jian – **This is a double edged sword that's sharpest at the tip and gets duller at the guard, used in Tai Chi. In laymen's terms, it's the sword from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

* * *


	2. Fade To Black I

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own the Titans, obviously. Nor do I own Soothsayer or Kenkaku; they belong to Rei Ronin. Green Destiny belongs to whoever owns the rights to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

**SPOILERS:** Up to Aftershock 2.

**SUMMARY:** Some souls are meant to be lovers for all eternity. Some, however, are meant only to be enemies. When a new serial killer blows into town, Beastboy discovers what it means to be part of the latter. (Part of Rei Ronin's Prophecies Universe.)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This story takes place after Rei Ronin's "Waves of Fate", and occurs at the same time as "Rolling the Dice" by the same author, so go read those first, 'cause they're good and this story won't make much sense otherwise. You can find them in the C2 community in my profile.

Also, anything in **bold** is a reference point, so kindly make your way to the end of the chapter for a translation and/or explanation. Okay, enough with the babbling. Read and enjoy.

* * *

**_Fade to Black I_**

Math. The most boring class in the history of all classes. It was an event dreaded by most every student to ever grace the halls of Jump City High School. In fact, most students the world over could find something to hate about the subject, whether it be the excess of numbers or the seemingly never-ending, mind-numbingly dull lectures on topics that couldn't possibly have any real world application outside of becoming a Math teacher.

As Vice Principal Jenny Hartwell walked into the small classroom, she could practically feel the students' dread permeating the air, filling the atmosphere and hugging her close like a warm fleece blanket. It almost made her shudder with delight.

Unlike her colleagues and underlings, she didn't try to engage her vic- er, students. She didn't try to make them comfortable in their subject. No, having them enjoy, or even accept, their time with her was completely against her philosophy. In fact, it was the main reason she'd transferred from the more dark and foreboding Gotham to the ever cheery, if crime filled, Jump City. Her old students at Gotham Heights Prep were far too jaded to appreciate her brand of torture…um, education. These students, however, were new and unspoilt. They still felt the horror of her very presence.

"Good morning, students," she said, 'accidentally' slamming her large pile of books on her desk, jolting everyone out of their misguided sense of security. She smirked as they all groaned out a reply. Crushing that small sliver of hope that developed in their little hearts when she was late was always her favourite part. "Today we'll be looking at Trigonometric Identities. Get your books out." All around the room, bodies slumped over desks, flopped back in chairs and generally wilted. The teacher's evil smile widened as she wrote an equation on the board. "If anyone can tell me the identity of cosecant squared X with respect to the tangent of X, _without_ looking in their books, then I might consider cutting your homework in half..."

At a desk in the centre of the room, a petite blonde girl closed her eyes, blocking out the sounds of her classmates' tormented groans and her teacher's taunting as she changed her mindset from average high schooler, Sarah Howell, to that of the Soothsayer, designated prophecy expert to the Titans. As fun as Math class could be, she had better things to do, like help the city's finest.

Soothsayer sat up straight in her chair and breathed deep.

In…

Out…

_Her mind cleared into a black void, where nothing existed besides a light, soundless, sourceless wind._

In…

_A mental projection of her physical self materialised in the void, her long blonde hair fluttering about her face as she stood serenely in the endless black, clothed in the tight indigo jeans and short, loose, white and cream robes her subconscious designated to her Soothsayer alter ego. At some point, she might even go about making it her official costume. When she finally admitted defeat in remaining relatively normal, that is_.

Out…

_A thick white mist swirled forth from the ground before her, its smoking tendrils snaking out to the far corners of the black abyss in which she stood, then curling upwards into the air._

In…

_Everything seemed to still for just a moment…_

Out…

_Suddenly, images and sounds rushed in from all directions in a huge gust of wind, filling spaces beyond and within the swirling mist. Colours bended and merged into a sea of chaos. A roaring din of voices rose up from the surrounding darkness, each vying for attention in varying timbres and volumes and languages, until all that was left was an indistinguishable cacophony of sound. _

_And standing in the middle of it was Soothsayer's mental self, seemingly unaffected by the change in atmosphere. Throughout the whole thing, she maintained a meditative stance, listening calmly to the chaos. For the longest time, there was no outward movement save for the flapping of her hair and clothes in the wind…_

_Then, she raised her right hand above her head, with her index and middle fingers standing straight up, while her other three fingers curved slightly towards her palm. Closing her eyes, she slowly lowered her hand until the tip of her index finger hovered directly in front of her **Ajna chakra**. _

_And she concentrated for seconds…_

_She snapped her eyes open and whispered, "Cease…" _

_Suddenly, everything ground to a stop, the voices, the images, as if the whole imaginary world was frozen, and then, just as abruptly, the mess of colours splashed outwards to form actual pictures. Ancient scrolls, stone tablets, and every other medium a prophecy had ever been written on, down to the last paper napkin, were scattered across the black space in complete disarray. The voices lulled to a low, and slightly more tolerable, murmur as all the invisible sources spread over the endless space, leaving only snippets of predictions intelligible from where she stood._

_Soothsayer's mental self let her legs collapse beneath her, dropping into a lotus position with a gracefulness that only a being with no real mass could have. She lay her right index and middle finger on the mist covered ground before her and closed her eyes, continuing her deep breathing as she concentrated on calling on 'The Path'._

_A shimmering indigo light formed around her fingertips. The wind whistled around her ears, picking up traces of the light and spreading it forth like a glimmering trail. It curved around the floating prophecies, cutting through the thick white mist like a mystical knife. Once the light had made a complete circuit around the prophetic field, the perimeter branched off into a multitude of capillary paths that wove around and between the various prophecies until they finally met up in the centre of the field._

_Soothsayer breathed deeply, sensing The Path in all its parts, her instincts feeling for the road that would lead her where she wanted to go._

_"Show me the shapeshifter," she murmured to herself, feeling invisible tendrils of power extending from her ajna chakra, skimming over the field with imaginary antennae._

_Keeping her eyes loosely closed, she lifted her right hand again, this time stretching it far in front of her as she rocked herself to her feet._

_Soothsayer's eyes drifted open and she jumped as an ancient parchment popped up two inches in front of her face. She rolled her eyes at herself as she stepped back._

_"Should have expected that, Sooth," she muttered to herself as she skimmed over the semi-obscured text. It was the Half-Man prophecy and it had been jumping out at her for the past week, but despite its seeming eagerness to be acknowledged, the white mist still covered most of the writings, making it virtually impossible to fully decipher until the mist was good and ready to dissipate completely._

_"If you're so anxious to be read," she grumbled as she passed her hand through the mist, watching as, expectedly, it reformed around her palm before anything could be seen. "You could at least try to clear yourself up so I can see."_

_The parchment didn't offer her a reply, as per usual. Shaking her head slightly, she stepped around the parchment and made her way to the first split in The Path, turning left, towards the outskirts of the Field of Destinies._

* * *

"Titans! Go!" Robin yelled, extending his bo-staff and twirling it in his hands as he swung onto the street below, deflecting three plasma bolts before slamming both boots into the shooter's face. The criminal spun 540 degrees on clumsy toes before face planting into the asphalt like a lead kite. His gun spun haphazardly through the air, nailing his buddy in the forehead just as he was about to shoot Starfire out of the sky. 

The Tamaranian charged a starbolt in both hands and launched it at the bank robbers' stolen armoured car.

"HAA!"

The back tires exploded, sending the car careening into a building front. Thick, grey smoke plumed from the crushed engine as the airbags deployed belatedly.

All seemed still from within the car.

A green vulture circled around the wreckage twice before swooping down the street and landing as a green elf. Beastboy crept warily to the car.

"Dudes?" he called, craning his neck to see around the airbag. "You okay?"

THWA-CRRRACK

Beastboy tossed himself to the side as the car door came flying away from its frame. The wing mirror flew off and clipped him in the neck, catching him by surprise. The added force sent him flat on the asphalt. The door landed somewhere down the street.

CRACK-CR-SHHHSSKKKKTTT

CLUNK CLUNK

Heavy boots stomped their way towards the changeling as he sat up rubbing his neck.

The criminal was tall and slim, dressed in a thick, black, rubber bodysuit that covered him completely from head to heavy, steel-tipped toe. Along each side of the suit, was a thin strip of copper. Matching three-inch thick copper bands were wrapped tightly around his waist, wrists and ankles. His head blocked the sun as he towered over Beastboy, his rifle hitched nonchalantly on his shoulder. His grey eyes glinted evilly as he aimed the gun at Beastboy's head and cocked it.

Beastboy's eyes widened.

The criminal winked as he pulled the trigger.

In that split second, Beastboy shifted into an armadillo and rolled between the man's legs. Before he could get another shot off, he morphed into an anaconda and slithered around his body, pinning his arms to his sides, until he was face to rubber-covered face with the criminal.

The anaconda hissed in his face as it tightened around his body, squeezing the breath out of his lungs.

The criminal only smirked under his mask as he fingered a hidden switch on his belt.

Suddenly, long arcs of blue electricity formed around his body.

DZZZZZZTTTT!

"DAA-AAA-AAAH OH!"

Beastboy unconsciously reverted to elf form and went flying across the street, crashing through a mailbox and landing flat on his back on the sidewalk, his limbs steaming.

"Oof!"

The criminal chuckled as he approached the groaning boy, once again aiming his gun at him.

"Shoulda just saved yourself the trouble."

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"

A shadow-engulfed streetlight plowed into his midsection as the Shinobi skidded to a stop at the edge of the battlefield.

Raven planted her foot on the ground, keeping the bike steady as she reached her hand out and swung the streetlight, and criminal, into a brick wall. She smirked as the man slumped forward, unconscious.

Taking off her helmet, she kicked the stand on the bike and floated towards Beastboy. She knelt beside him and helped him up.

"Are you okay?"

"Dude…" Beastboy winced at her touch on his burnt skin. "Since when do you drive Shinobi?"

"It looked lonely," she said dryly.

Their communicators crackled to life.

"Titans! The perps are wearing electrified exosuits!" Robin's voice announced helpfully. "Don't get too close!"

"Gee, thanks, Rob," Beastboy muttered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement back at the car wreck. Another man had climbed out of the driver's side and was aiming a gun at Raven.

Without thinking, he shape-shifted into a ram and head-butted him in the ribs, making him lose his grip on the gun.

Unfortunately, the guy's suit was on.

Beastboy reformed with a big burn mark on his forehead and a head full of singed hair.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"

Black shadow formed around the driver's torso and lifted him five feet in the air. The dark energy seemed to seek out all the hidden circuits in the suit, shorting it out in a matter of seconds.

Raven glared with white glowing eyes.

"Time for a blackout."

With that said, she slammed him into the concrete pavement, knocking him out cold.

Cutting off her power, Raven turned to survey the rest of the battlefield. There were still four bank robbers left, awake and shooting with abandon. About two blocks away, she could make out another crashed armoured car with two more criminals climbing out. Every one of them wore a black exosuit.

She turned to Beastboy. "You might as well head back to the Tower." Beastboy looked like he was about to protest. "Unless you have an animal form that's not susceptible to electrocution, there's nothing much you can do here."

Beastboy could only stand and watch as she levitated off the ground and entered the battle without another word, clearly dismissing him. He looked torn between jumping in anyway, and actually listening to her for once.

In the end, seeing the logic in her words, he turned into a sparrow and flew westward, toward the bay and the Tower.

* * *

**REFERENCE POINT:**

**Ajna Chakra – **The sixth energy centre in the human body, according to Eastern philosophy. Also known as the third eye. It's the source of psychic vision and spiritual guidance. Located in the middle of the brow, or, in laymen's terms, where Raven has her gemstone.

* * *


	3. Fade To Black II

_The indigo light glowed brighter the further she walked down this road; almost pulsating with each step she took like a visual heartbeat. The floating prophecies surrounding the road grew fewer and further between as she neared the end. This part of the Field was virtually empty of images, but somewhat louder than the other sections of the Field that she'd visited before, yet the added volume did absolutely nothing to help her understand what the voices were saying. In fact, the voices were even more unintelligible than when she'd first entered this realm, if that was even possible._

_The mental Soothsayer squinted her eyes as she progressed further, the path glowing brighter, throbbing with an intensity that would burn through her retinas if they were real. She faltered a bit as the brightness increased by another hundred watts, frowning at the implications._

_The only time The Path ever glowed this ferociously was when a prophecy was at the brink of fruition. But surely something this imminent would have caught her attentions before? She usually came across these things far longer in advance._

_Shaking her head, Soothsayer plunged ahead, bringing her hand up to shield eyes that were squinted so hard they were mere slits against the bright light rays as she pressed forward._

_One step…_

_Two steps…_

_…And suddenly, the light cut off and she was plunged into darkness…and still, still silence._

_"…the hell?"_

_Her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings. She was standing at the edge of the abyss, where the path dropped off into nothing. The brightly glowing road that had beckoned her forth for what seemed like hours led to…nowhere._

_Putting her hands on her hips, she glared around the multicoloured dots that speckled her vision from staring into the light for too long, into the never-ending black, tapping her foot in annoyance._

_Suddenly, her eyes hit on something just in front of her, veiled in the shadow cast from her body by the bright Path behind her._

_She dropped her hands to her sides as she paced slowly forward, her vision adjusting to the darkness more with every step she took._

_Finally, she could make out faint streaks of dull indigo light stretching forward, away from the main field, leading up to what seemed to be a stone tablet, crookedly half-buried in the dark 'ground' like an old gravestone, strangely devoid of the ever-present white mist, but seemingly enshrouded with shadow._

_When she was close enough, she crouched and reached out, touching light fingertips to cold, grey stone, tracing the words with her skin before she graced them with her eyes._

_Unbeknownst to her, the darkness slowly, silently, encroached upon them, until suddenly it surged forward and swallowed up the stone before she'd even had a chance to decipher its meaning…_

_Then, just as unexpectedly, shadow rushed in on invisible wind and engulfed the entire field, thrusting her mind back into reality._

Sarah could barely suppress a shudder as her consciousness returned to the small Math class at Jump City High School.

Those shadows…they felt…cold…unnatural to her mind.

Whatever it was, it definitely didn't come from her.

Shaking her head, she blinked the slightly glazed look out of her eyes and glanced around the classroom.

Everyone was staring forward, as would be expected if you really wanted to survive Ms. Hartwell's class with your social life/free time still intact, that is. It wasn't an inherently odd occurrence. What did give her pause was the fact that everyone, especially the female population of the class, was looking forward with genuine interest, something she hadn't seen since the first ten minutes after Ms. Hartwell had introduced herself when she'd started teaching here at the beginning of the year. Furrowing her brows, she glanced forward.

As expected, the entire blackboard was covered in white-chalked Mathematical gibberish, but instead of standing in the midst of it, mercilessly adding more confusing equations and droning, as was her custom, Ms. Hartwell was staring off to the side, left hand on her hip, right hand tapping her chalk pen on her dusty desk with an annoyance that was mirrored on her scowling face. Her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Is there a reason you're disrupting my class? Because you're not one of mine, but don't think I can't still make you thankful you don't have the privilege."

Sarah shifted her eyes towards the open doorway, following gazes of her other classmates.

A boy moved further into the classroom, holding out a white square of paper to the glaring teacher. He barely flinched as Ms. Hartwell snatched the paper roughly from his hand, as if he had expected such, and merely turned to survey the class as she read, finally giving the rest of the room more than just a profile view of his face.

Long, jet-black hair hung loose and straight against the sides of his face stopping just above his chin, framing a ghostly pale face. He had soft cheeks and full, pouty lips. Dark eyebrows curved neatly above a pair of eyes the colour of mist in moonlight, a blue-grey so light it was almost transparent against white cornea.

Suddenly, his eyes hit on her and rested there for a few moments, making her feel like they were peering into her very soul. The corner of his mouth quirked into a faint smirk, before he finally moved on, and Sarah had to fight to hold in a shudder.

'He's cute,' she decided, 'but his eyes are creepy as all hell.'

"So you're a new addition," Ms. Hartwell murmured to herself. "That explains the extra desk." She gestured vaguely to the rest of the classroom with her chalk pen. "Welcome to Trig. Go find your seat. You're bothering me."

The boy smiled brightly at her before turning back to the class and manoeuvring down the crooked middle aisle.

Ms. Hartwell's scowl deepened. Nobody smiled in her class. She waited until he slid into the empty seat next to Sarah before addressing the rest of the class.

"Well, now thanks to Mr. Ivanov, we've lost ten minutes of our lesson." A slow smile stole over her face as realisation crossed over half of her class's faces. "To make up for it, the fifty questions Mr. Bradley somehow managed to save you from earlier are now reinstated." Now the whole class was a mask of dawning horror and glares thrown in the new kid's direction. Dmitri Ivanov graciously shrank back in his seat, a nervous glint finally lighting in his eyes, as it should have been to begin with.

Her smile widened.

Damn, she loved her job.

* * *

CRASSSHHH-DOOOUUUZZZHHHH! 

"Feel my power!" a deep voice cackled from the middle of the traffic-jammed bridge as numerous citizens abandoned their cars and scurried away to safety, screaming. "Taste my wrath!" A woman shrieked as a ten foot tall, mutant steroid monger ripped off her door and wrenched her out from the confines of her silver Volvo, lifting her so close to his face that she could feel his steaming, rancid breath burning through her nostrils. "Who ya gonna call, girlie! Your weenie super-pixie in blue tights?" He sneered at her, blood-shot eyes wide around dilated pupils. "Well, he can't help ya now, sugar, 'cause I…I am HyperChondria! I am invincible! And Supergeek could never take me down!"

HyperChondria flung the woman down, laughing maniacally with his hands flung in the air, not even noticing as she scrambled away on the asphalt. "Hear that, Superman! I'm here to take your greasy alien ass down!"

"Um, dude?"

HyperChondria spun around to find a green boy with pointed ears perched on an empty Mac truck, staring down at him.

"Superman's, like, a couple thousand miles thatta way," he said, throwing a thumb vaguely over his shoulder. "You gotta hang a left at Kansas."

HyperChondria flexed in his direction. "Who the hell are you, kid? Get out my face."

The boy stood up, taking on a standard Superman-esque pose, his shaggy hair vibrating in the wind in lieu of an actual cape. "Beastboy," he answered. "Think of me as…your one way ticket to jail. All expense paid by the Titans."

HyperChondria glared at him, cracking his knuckles as he took in the black-and-violet bodysuit that, outside of Halloween and an eighties aerobics class, would never be worn out in public by anyone but a superhero.

"Fool," he snarled. "You can't defeat me! I'm HyperChondria!"

Beastboy's brow furrowed between a confused frown and…well, a confused eyebrow raise. "You're afraid of getting sick? Dude, should I, like, bring you one of those sugar pill thingies?"

"They send the village idiot to stop me!" he yelled to no one in particular. "I am invincible, boy, and I'm gonna make them sorry they even bothered to send a scrawny littleshit like you to fight me." He punched his palm as he strolled closer to the truck. Beastboy sweatdropped. "They'll see when I leave a flaming pile of neon green crap on their doorstep! RRRAAAUUUGGGHHHH!"

He surged forward, fist flying into the hard steel of the truck's side, forming a knuckle-sized dent two inches below Beastboy's feet. "Get down here so I can pound your face in!"

Beastboy turned into a cat and leapt off the truck, landed on the ground as a gorilla and charged with an angry roar. HyperChondria seemed slightly surprised, but still managed to catch his gorilla fist in his left hand before it could impact on his nose.

The villain caught his other fist just as easily and head-butted Beastboy before he even had a chance to realise he was trapped.

The gorilla roared in pain as thick forehead met thick forehead again. Beastboy shapeshifted into a velociraptor, dropped out of HyperChondria's grasp and landed on clawed feet. He screeched up at him as he spun on his reptilian heel and slammed his tail into the back of the villain's knees, making the man pitch forward.

HyperChondria caught himself on his hands and rolled out of the way as a green lion pounced at him. He swung a leg out and slammed it into his ribs.

Beastboy roared and swiped at the offending leg with a front paw, claws extended.

"ARGH!"

HyperChondria flinched back as Beastboy's nails cut four long grooves of red diagonally across his calf.

The lion morphed into a grizzly bear and lunged at the crouching villain.

HyperChondria rolled onto his back, planted both feet into the bear's midsection, and, using his own momentum against him, flung him forward over his body.

Beastboy went sailing through an abandoned Jeep, plowing through the open driver side door and landing across the two front seats, the gear stick digging painfully into his furry back. The front and passenger side windows shattered and rained glass upon his prone figure.

STOMP STOMP STOMP

CR-CRUNCH

"RrrraaaAAAHHHH…HAAAAA!"

Beastboy reverted to neutral form and looked up just in time to see a puke green Volkswagen Beetle careening towards him.

"D'aaahhh!"

He turned into a giant bullfrog and leapt out the opposite window milliseconds before the Beetle crashed into the Jeep. The Jeep rolled off its tires and skidded sideways towards him, the Beetle latched onto its side, metal and asphalt grating against each other in a shower of orange sparks.

The changeling shifted into a cheetah and sprinted in the opposite direction, flying embers hot at his tail. Turning away from the sliding clump of metal, he focussed on where he was going…

He faltered slightly on his paws as he saw a gasoline tanker loom before him.

Beastboy stopped his front legs suddenly, allowing his hind legs to skid around, sending him spiralling in a sharp ninety-degree turn. Then, pumping his borrowed leg-muscles in a desperate burst of speed, he catapulted himself out of the way just as the two cars slammed into the tanker with a resounding crash.

Beastboy skidded to a stop a few feet away and reverted to his semi-human form, eyeing the wreckage warily.

He puffed a sigh of relief when it didn't explode.

A sigh that suddenly turned into a gasp as a burly fist grabbed onto the back of his suit, hauled him about three feet off the ground and flung him through the air, back towards the tanker.

Beastboy flipped in midair, turned into a kangaroo, and kicked off the side of the tanker, propelling himself at top speed towards the villain.

HyperChondria rushed forward and swung a speeding fist at the flying marsupial…

WHAM!

Heavy knuckles slammed into green fur, and Beastboy went flying back the way he came.

At that moment, a spark ignited beneath the two crashed cars, following a long line of leaked fuel, trailing fire towards the underside of the slightly damaged tanker…

Beastboy turned into a pterodactyl mid-flail, pumping leathery wings hard to propel himself higher in the air with a loud screech.

HyperChondria cackled madly. "Yeah, you better run! Bring me back a challenge and a box of chicken while you're at it!"

The pterodactyl flipped in the air, turned into a hawk, and dive-bombed HyperChondria. Just before he reached him, he turned into a rhino and plowed into the villain's midsection.

Both went tumbling head-over-feet along the bridge in between the long lines of cars. They came to a stop fifteen feet away with HyperChondria straddling Beastboy's chest, grinning triumphantly.

"Lights out, kid," he said with a smirk, before bringing both his fists crashing down at his head.

Beastboy turned into a gorilla, grabbed HyperChondria by the waist, and tossed him off of his torso.

HyperChondria went sailing through the air…

SWOOOSHHH

…landed on the hood of a Lexus…

SLAM!

…then rolled off, landing flat on his face on the asphalt.

WH-WHAP-THRUMP

Beastboy pushed himself into a crouch, and glared across the way at the fallen HyperChondria as he pulled out his communicator.

"Guys," he said. When Robin finally answered with a frustrated 'Report!' he could still hear the fight on Main Street raging on in the background. Beastboy sweat dropped. "Er…never mind. I'll handle it myself." He flipped the communicator off and pressed the little button on the side, a beacon for the J.C.P.D.Metahuman Containment Unit to make a pick up, before tucking it away and shifting into a pterodactyl again.

"Skkriiieeeeaaahhhh!" he screeched as he flapped green wings and took to the air, zooming towards the downed villain.

Meanwhile, flames licked at the side of the gas truck, finally finding rapidly escaping fumes from the crash site to fuel their fury until…

KABOOOMMM!

The tanker exploded.

* * *

Robin back-flipped onto the roof of a parked SUV, flinging three exploding disks at the bank robbers that were happily, and mercilessly, shooting at him with high-powered laser rifles. One of them just shot the disks in midair, making them explode early, while the other continued to shoot at the Boy Wonder in abandon. 

"Damn it," Robin grunted. Fed up was the understatement that his brain insisted on supplying as the sound of metal crunching under exploding gunfire assaulted his ears. It wasn't even remotely strong enough to describe how he felt about getting shot at like a target at a shooting range.

Pulling a grappling hook out of his utility belt, he shot the line out and swung away from the car just as a bullet hit the fuel tank and it exploded. He let go of the grapple, landing in a crouch with his cape wrapped around himself, the polymerised titanium protecting his relatively soft body from flying shrapnel.

"I hate guns," he grumbled to himself as he ducked into an alley and shot another grapple to a nearby rooftop.

Just as his feet hit the concrete, his communicator decided to chirp to life. He gritted his teeth. "Report!" he grunted into it, only half listening to Beastboy as he stared down the building to the street below, holding two birdarangs at ready.

From his new vantage point above the street, he could see the two villains high-five each other in victory seconds before being attacked by a volley of starbolts. It looked like Star was trying to talk them into surrender even as they pointed their guns at her. She seemed to sigh, before releasing a steady stream of green heat from her eyes, effectively melting the weapons.

Robin smirked to himself as he put away his projectiles and the communicator, and prepared to swing down to the street again. Just as he pulled the trigger on the grapple, there was a rumble in the distance.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a huge cloud of black smoke and fire billow into the air a few blocks away.

And he just stood there, frozen, staring into the distance.

"What the…?"

* * *

A wave of heated, compacted air rushed outwards in a circumference of destruction and flying shrapnel, pushing everything nearby outwards in chaotic ruin, before the rushing gases around the tanker heated up with furious flames and thick smoke. 

The bridge vibrated with the force of the explosion.

All other sounds seemed to be buried by the crackle of the fire.

Orange embers rained over half the bridge.

A green being, halfway between a pterodactyl and a human, was flung forward at the very edge of the concussion wave, sailing over the grounded form of HyperChondria, careening through the shattered back-window of a still-idling bus, galumphing through rows and rows of high-backed seats, then crashing through the unfortunately still intact windscreen, before landing flat on his back on a shoddy old, once-white jalopy, cuts and bruises covering his almost-face, and scratches and scrapes showing through his torn and singed uniform.

There was a shrill whining as the car's alarm went off.

Beastboy groaned without the energy to even lift his head.

For a moment, the only movement on the bridge was the incessant flickering of a roaring October fire.

HyperChondria lifted his head and looked around, smirking to himself as he saw the annoying little superhero lying limply on a car roof a few feet away. Not giving the flaming debris that littered the ground around him a second thought, he pushed himself to his feet and slowly limped over to the downed boy, a malicious grin forming on his face.

Now was his chance to rid the world of one of its useless spandex-clad killjoys.

Beastboy's eyes fluttered slowly open, his vision pitching and swimming, and alternating between mammalian and reptilian eyesight without his control, but even then, he could make out the burly hands wrapping around his throat, and feel the pressure, yet simultaneous weightlessness, of being lifted into the air by his neck.

Beastboy's eyes slid closed…

And suddenly, he felt himself slump to the ground.

With a pain-filled groan, he managed to force his eyes open again.

The figure standing over him wasn't the huge and bulging HyperChondria as he'd expected. It was thin, and around his height, with a slight, girlish frame, leaning casually against a dangerously glinting sword.

He blinked slowly again, and suddenly she was crouched next to him, and he could just about make out large, almond-shaped eyes, a tiny nose and long, flowing, blonde hair swaying in the wind. And he was sure it was his spontaneously morphing eyeballs throwing his colour perception out of whack, but it kinda looked like she was tinted in gold. Nevertheless, she looked eerily familiar…

The girl tipped her head to the side and smirked down at him with a semi-nefarious glint in her eyes. "You'll die at no one's hands but mine, Green One."

She dragged the tip of the sword over the asphalt, and twirled it around in her hand, stopping with the tip pressed lightly against his forehead.

"T-T-Terra…?" he wheezed.

She scoffed. "You wish."

Then all went black.

* * *


	4. The Ecstasy of Gold

"Nnngghhh…"

His nose twitched, a vaguely familiar metallic scent invading his senses.

_"…what happened here…"_

A long, sighing breath, ending in a painfully pathetic whine that would break most people's hearts…

_"…get him…"_

Pale, yellow light doing the Mexican wave on a backdrop of green-and-red-tinged black…

_Then floating…_

Floating…

_The swish of fabric waving through the air and brushing on hard floor…_

The breathy hiss of one of the Tower doors sliding closed…

And Beastboy's eyes opened to an empty room. The Medical Bay. He squinted into the bright lights of the stark white room and slowly sat himself up on his elbows, unconsciously preparing to wince at the pressure on his burnt skin, but surprised when the expected sting never came.

What happened?

Turning his head right, he looked out the wall-to-wall window. The sun was still relatively high in the sky, but it was clearly well past noon. The last thing he remembered was the Titan alert nearly choking him with scrambled tofu eggs…or maybe it was tofu waffles…dude, he was hungry…

Shuffling out from under the crisp white sheets, he made his way to the door and wandered off in search of food, brow furrowing as he tried to piece together the rest of the day, wincing as each step jarred his aching bones.

The fleeting memory of his skin sizzling from the dancing electricity from military grade exosuits drifted into his consciousness as he strolled into the elevator and pushed the 'up' button. The doors swished closed in front of him, and he suddenly felt his stomach lurch in a not-so-pleasant way as the metal cabin made its upward ascent.

Suddenly, he regretted leaving the somewhat comfortable bed in the Medical Bay.

By the time he made it to the main room, he'd managed to remember everything up to that point, and with that memory came newly awakened pain and he could only come to one conclusion.

"Today sucks!" Beastboy complained as he flopped onto the rounded couch in the main room. His only answer was a slight hum in the air from the fridge and Raven's deep even breathing from where she floated in what he could only guess was a non-chanty form of meditation.

He lay back on the couch, practically hearing his sore muscles worshipping him for the new position as he settled into the soft cushions.

Rolling over onto his stomach, he propped himself up on his elbows and watched Raven. She was almost completely still, the only apparent movement from under her closed eyelids and the slight quirk of her lips every so often. Her face seemed naturally relaxed, and perhaps slightly content, far removed from the physically induced neutral that could usually be seen when she meditated. That could only mean one thing.

"Hey, Rae?"

Her left eyebrow twitched in annoyance; the only acknowledgement he was likely to get at this point.

He hopped off the couch and sidled up to her. "What'cha doin'?"

There was a slight growl to her next exhale. A warning to most, but somewhere between her throat and the changeling's brain it translated into an open invitation.

Beastboy's face broke into a wide grin.

"You're talking to Kenkaku, aren't you?"

Raven opened her eyes and glared at him as she opened her mouth to reply.

"Hey, d'you have Cy on the line?" He didn't wait for her answer as he sprung forward, grabbing her shoulders and leaning close to her ear, bouncing excitedly on his toes, practically climbing out of his skin and onto her back. "Dude, tell Cyborg that I totally kicked his high score's butt in Mega Monkeys 3!"

By the end of that, he was practically screaming in her ear, and Raven's anger was visibly pulsating on her forehead.

Her head turned slowly in his direction, eyes narrowing more with each degree of the turn into a fiercer and fiercer glare until finally she was glowering directly into his wide green eyes.

His ecstatic grin slipped into a nervous simper as he sweatdropped.

"No, I do _not_ have Cyborg on the line. I don't _have_ a line. I am not a _telephone_, Beastboy," she ground out through gritted teeth, each word cutting out with an extra dose of venom. Beastboy shrank back as she leaned forward, eyes close to smouldering. "Nor am I a _party-line_ on which you can chat about your _pointless_­ videogame scores."

"Heh heh," he giggled nervously, "So I, uh, g-guess this would be a bad time to ask about y-your long distance rates?"

A shot of black telekinetic energy exploded from her aura and blasted Beastboy across the room.

"Waaahh! Oof!"

He landed on the floor two inches away from the couch.

The elevator doors swished open and the Boy Wonder wandered through, a bag of ice in his gloved hands and an alien floating at his shoulder.

Beastboy sat up, rubbing his head as he crawled onto the sofa. "Ow…"

"Oh, there you are," Robin said, strolling toward the couch. He tossed the ice-pack at him. "Here, use this."

Beastboy fumbled for it, then promptly stuck it on his aching head, glowering over at Raven.

Raven just stared back, an unapologetic smirk on her face, before closing her eyes and returning to her telepathic conversation.

He stuck his tongue out at her.

Black shadow accumulated in front of Raven in the shape of a darkly-glowing hand with a raised middle finger.

"Friend!" Beastboy barely had time to suck his tongue back into his mouth before Starfire was squeezing the breath out of him. "I am most elated to see you in an awakened state!"

Beastboy wheezed in her arms.

Starfire giggled as she let go and her hands clasped in front of her chest, her usual joyous grin on her face.

"Yeah, good to have you back," Robin said, smirking as he crossed his arms over his chest and moved to lean back on the curved island between the kitchen and the living room. "Now, mind telling me why there's a big hole in the Bridge?"

"Uh…" Beastboy blinked. "Oh!" He started waving his arms wildly as he spoke. "There was this dude, and he was all like, 'Grr! Superman's a big greasy alien and I'm gonna kill him!' So I was like, 'Dude!' and…"

Robin listened intently from his spot leaning against the island that separated the kitchen from the living room, scratching his chin thoughtfully as he mentally weeded out the excess Beastboy-isms to get to the bare bones of the report.

Starfire wandered off into the kitchen after a while, rummaging around in the cupboards, tossing random items into a large mixing bowl.

Raven floated in front of the window, ignoring the whole lot of them.

"And that's when…" Beastboy trailed off in his narration, eyes finding the weave on the couch particularly interesting.

Robin's brow furrowed. "What? When what?" he asked, when Beastboy didn't seem intent on continuing.

Starfire floated back into the room, stirring brownish goop that could be loosely interpreted as cake batter.

"I…" He swallowed, turning to look at his friend with wide eyes. "I saw Terra…"

Starfire dropped the bowl and gasped.

Raven opened an eye and lifted an eyebrow.

Robin's face twitched like he wasn't sure what expression to put on. Finally, he settled for pushing off the counter and sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch, a look of professional curiosity sliding across his face. The look of concern for Beastboy's mental health was waiting stealthily in the wings for when the changeling wasn't staring directly at him, though.

"Someone brought the statue to the bridge?"

"No, she wasn't just some statue. She was _real_," he uttered. "She talked to me…"

Robin leaned forward. "Well, what did she say?"

Beastboy sat up and turned away from him, staring out the window with brows furrowed as he struggled to remember, but all he could focus on was her standing there, backlit by the sun and actually _alive_.

And in his mind's eye, he could see her lips moving in slow motion, forming words that he should be able to make out, but the only sound he could remember was the insistent whining of a car alarm and shrill ringing in his ears.

"I…I don't remember."

Robin looked over at Raven, who just shrugged in response.

Turning back to Beastboy, he asked, "Are you _sure_ it was Terra you saw?"

Beastboy scowled. "I know Terra when I see her!" he exploded, flinging a couch cushion across the room. "That was Terra!"

Robin gritted his teeth, pulling himself up to his full height.

"Beastboy. Calm. Down," he ordered.

Beastboy glared at him a few moments more for good measure, before crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back on the couch, petulantly.

Robin nodded briefly to himself before turning away; calling up the city surveillance feed on the view screen. Walking over to one of the computer terminals, he quickly typed in a short command, bringing up footage from a familiar cave.

Right in the middle of the screen stood Terra's statue, a digital display on the bottom right corner of the image ticking down seconds in synch with the Tower's own clocks.

Beastboy's jaw dropped. "B-but…"

"I'm pulling you off patrol for tonight." Robin glanced across the room momentarily before adding. "Raven will take over your sectors. We're already short-handed; whatever happened out there, it's obviously affected your brain in some way…"

"What little brain there was to begin with," Raven supplied helpfully.

Robin ignored her. "With Cyborg and Kenkaku behind enemy lines at Hive, and all those weapons still at large, we can't afford any mistakes."

"Hey! That means…"

* * *

"Va-ca-tion. Do you know what that means? It means get somebody else to do it or wait 'til later. I don't work for you now; I have better things to do." She sprawled out on the couch as she polished her collection of custom-made shurikens, a cell phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder. "I know I work for you, but you don't _own_ me. You're better off trying to jump into the sun."

A pause.

Her eyes narrowed, body tensing. "Touch him and die. He is _my_ property, not yours."

Another pause.

"Fine. I'll do it," she huffed, putting down the shuriken. "_After_ I complete my mission." She stood and paced in front of the couch, running a hand through her long blonde hair. "Yes, I have better things to do than your work," she groused, glancing over as the front door swung open. "Look, do yourself a favour and have that pit of yours regenerate your brain cells before I have to come in there and take them all away…along with your head!"

Slamming her cell phone shut, she tossed it across the room and turned fully to the figure in the open doorway.

"It's about time you got home. We've got work to do."

* * *

"You fool! Guns don't work in this town! We need metas or ninjas or something!" He paced over to the window, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too. That anyone bothered to hire you. You're a real dumb ass bastard, you know that?"

His head snapped up as he heard a shuffling noise from outside. Putting a hand over the receiver, he started to call out to the guards, but, with a quick glance at the clock, decided against it. Eight-thirty; they were probably just changing shifts.

"Look, I want that accountant alive, you hear me?" he yelled into the phone. "If he dies before trial, I swear to God-" He stopped abruptly when he realised the stuttering from the other end had stopped.

"Your phone won't work without this," a voice said casually from behind him.

He jumped, spinning around to find the phone cord twirling in mid-air. The phone, along with his jaw, dropped to the ground as he backed away.

"Relax," the voice said. The air at the edge of his desk seemed to thicken and shift and he could make out the faint transparent shape of a body.

The 'hand' holding the phone cord lifted to what he could only assume was a face and raised something in the invisible air, revealing a pair of large, almond-shaped, unnaturally golden eyes. The left eye winked as the air shifted and thickened again, now taking on some colour. He could now see the solid skin of a thin girl. The object she'd moved before, a pair of dark glasses, sat on top of her head of long, blonde hair.

Like ninety percent of the weirdo population of Jump City, she was dressed mostly in spandex; a dark gold, full body suit that cut away at the stomach, leaving a half-circle of pale gold skin bare at each of her sides. A white utility belt was wrapped loosely around her thin hips, hanging over bronze leather mini skirt.

The girl leaned back on the desk and smirked at him semi-seductively, swinging her crossed legs back and forth against the edge of the desk.

He eyed the distinct lack of curves, made easily visible by her tight gold bodysuit and made a face. "This town," he muttered to the heavens, shaking his head. "Look, kid, get out of my office before I call the cops."

The girl's smile instantly dropped into a scowl. "Fine," she sneered as she hopped off the desk and sashayed up to him. "We'll do it the nasty way, then."

"Please," he said, brushing her off. "I don't go for little girls. Come back when you're older." He glanced her over in disdain. "And more devel-ackkk…"

She grabbed him by the throat and spun him around so he could see as she pressed the pointed edge of a shuriken against the soft flesh of his neck in the reflection in the window.

"I'm older than you would believe, but that's beside the point. Let's try this again, shall we?" she said. "See, you have a job to do, I have a job to do, and I'm sure neither of us wants to do it, 'cause, heck, everybody hates their job." She tightened her grip, pressing harder against his Adam's apple. "Tell me where the witness is, perhaps I'll let you live, you know? I'm sure the wife and kids would appreciate that option more than my boss's orders, right?" The man gulped as a bead of blood seeped out from under his skin and trickled along the edge of the blade. "You're just lucky that I'm pissed at him, else I wouldn't give you a choice. So, are you gonna talk, or am I gonna have to waste my time snooping?"

His eyes bugged out, white flashing at the corner of his vision, as she squeezed tighter. He helplessly gasped for breath. He felt as if somebody had pulled the plug on his energy reserves and it was slowly draining out through his feet. He couldn't move.

She sighed. "Too late." With that, she pushed the shuriken all the way in and sliced sideways, leaving a gushing gorge in the man's neck. She released her grip, letting him drop lifelessly to the floor as she wandered over to his desk and flipped open the top folder.

"Lawyers," she muttered to herself, rolling her eyes as she stole a post-it from his top drawer and jotted down an address. Stuffing the small square of paper in her belt, she tossed the pen at his dead body and sauntered out the door.

She tapped the tiny communicator in her ear as she daintily stepped over a particularly large pool of red blood, fed by two streams from either side of the room.

"Hey, Mystic," she said as she turned the silver doorknob at the end of the room. She frowned as a dark red smeared over the smooth chrome.

_"Did you get it?"_ asked a voice at the other end of the communicator.

"Of course I got it," she replied absently. Hopping over another body, she licked her fingers. "Your lack of faith astounds me, Mystic." She stepped into elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. Facing the back of the cubicle, she studied herself in the mirror set in the top half of the wall. A few droplets of blood stained the right sleeve of her suit, but luckily, the rest of her was untouched. Shrugging, she tore off the ruined fabric and stuffed it into a compartment in her belt, pulling out a new one and attaching it in its place. "I'll be done with this in an hour, tops."

_"Bring me something nice?"_

"Ha, no," she grunted and tapped the communicator again, cutting off the connection.

A rich, chocolate brown colour seemed to bleed over her skin, flawlessly covering up its natural golden hue. The blonde in her hair was mostly taken over by jet black, leaving only small streaks of its original colour. With a little bit of concentration, she managed to change the colour of her clothes as well to a simple yellow.

Her transformation complete, she pulled her black shades back on as the elevator doors slid open, flipping her now-black hair over her shoulder as she sauntered past the crowd of business people waiting for the elevator. She smirked smugly to herself as she passed mostly unnoticed through the bustling lobby of the building, smiling and nodding gracefully as a security guard politely opened the front door for her as she walked out.

No one suspected a thing.

* * *

Beastboy giggled to himself as he backed out of the closing clothes store, arms full of shopping bags and head full of mischievous plans for Cyborg and Kenkaku.

"Hee hee hee, this is gonna be so swee-oof!" He grunted as he rammed into somebody and face-planted embarrassingly in the middle of the sidewalk, the contents of his bags scattering across the pavement. "Aw, dude…"

"Beastboy?"

His head shot up at the familiar voice. "Sooth?"

The blonde psychic held out her right hand to help him up, balancing a pizza box precariously on her left hand.

Grabbing the proffered hand, Beastboy pulled himself up; grinning warmly at her even as his eyes darted around to make sure no one else had seen his show of grace. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the darkening street empty of people.

"I would think you'd be patrolling now," Soothsayer commented, bending to help Beastboy collect his shopping. "Not out buying…" She paused, frowning as she reached for a crumpled lump on the ground. "A frilly pink prom dress?" Another small object fell from the bundle and fell silently to the ground. She raised an eyebrow as she picked it up. "And a lacy bra?" She eyed him suspiciously. "What are you planning?"

Beastboy scratched the back of his head with a simper and a blush. "N-nothing…"

"So you moonlight as a green drag queen?"

Beastboy sweatdropped. "No!" He glanced around suspiciously before pulling her close and whispering his plans conspiratorially in her ear.

She smirked, amused, as he pulled away, cackling wildly.

"I don't believe I want to be a full Titan now."

He slinked up to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "I think we can arrange something," he said in a sly tone, bouncing his eyebrows up and down, a lecherous grin on his face.

Soothsayer rolled her eyes at his antics, removing his arm from her shoulder, and shoving the clothes into his hands.

Shaking her head, she turned and continued walking down the road. "Goodbye, Beastboy."

"Dude, wait up!" Beastboy called, gathering up his bags and scrambling after her. "Where are you going?"

"Home. This pizza is getting cold."

"Ooh, what kind is it?"

She glanced down at the box, like she could see the familiar surface of the ham and sausage pizza she preferred through the cardboard, and grimaced. "You don't want to know."

"Huh?" Beastboy looked confused, then shrugged it off. "Want me to walk with you?" he asked, flexing his non-existent muscles. "Every girl wants Beastboy as their bodygua-"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I can't be seen with a Titan. Secret identity, remember?" she replied.

Beastboy studied her and decided that she didn't, in fact, look very Soothsayer-ish at the moment. Who she was being now, though, he didn't know.

"Dude, I can totally fix that!" With that, he morphed into a parrot and flew up to perch on her shoulder, his bags dropping to the ground, forgotten. "I'm a master of disguise."

Soothsayer looked and him and blinked. "And a seventeen year old girl walking down Main Street with a green parrot on her shoulder is so inconspicuous," she murmured, absently picking up his bags and continuing her journey.

"Yeah, dude, nobody will suspect a thing!"

Soothsayer rolled her eyes at him as she stopped at a traffic light. "You still can't come with me. My identity's secret from you as well-"

"Hey, Sarah!"

She gasped in surprise at the sudden voice behind her, spinning around so fast she almost threw Beastboy off her shoulder. The green bird squawked, flapping his wings to regain balance before settling down again.

Soothsayer gritted her teeth in irritation as she recognised the boy standing before her. It was the new kid and he'd been stalking her all day, at least, that's how it felt. He was in every single one of her classes, somehow managing to always find a seat near her, and had seemingly been everywhere she went afterward, his creepy blue-white eyes following her every move.

What was worse was that he seemed to throw off her concentration, making it impossible for her to get into the Field of Destinies, and frankly, it was making her antsy.

"Hello, Dmitri," she replied, not too warmly.

A shiver wracked through her so hard she was sure Beastboy could feel it as the boy leaned forward to study the parrot on her shoulder.

"Cool bird," he decided, reaching out to Beastboy. "Does he bite?"

She glanced at Beastboy, considering.

Dmitri didn't wait for her answer and stroked his feathers anyway. "Hey, is this one of those talking ones, Sarah?"

A vein in Soothsayer's forehead throbbed as he repeated her name. She was hoping Beastboy had missed it the first time, but there was no way he did this time around.

She glanced up, almost sighing in relief when the traffic light turned red, making the crossing sign flash green.

"I've gotta get home," she said. "Bye."

"I'll see you tomorrow in Bio, yes?" he called. Soothsayer merely waved her hand over her head as she hurried across the road.

Beastboy turned his head, catching a glimpse of Dmitri's back as he turned and walked in the other direction, humming loudly in the quiet night.

"Dude, where's the fire?" he questioned as he turned back to his friend.

Soothsayer was silent for a moment, before answering. "He creeps me out. It feels like he is everywhere I turn," she muttered.

"Oh."

As they passed the shopping district and crossed over to the business areas the shadows grew thicker, swallowing them up in the encompassing darkness of the night. A full moon shone above them, but every few steps hid it behind the looming brick buildings. The only thing more oppressing than the darkness was the strange silence that seemed to hang over their heads.

"So, uh…" Beastboy shapeshifted into a monkey and climbed onto Soothsayer's head, peering at her upside down. "Your real name's Sarah, huh?"

Soothsayer bristled, then shook her head, dislodging the monkey. "Okay, get off."

"Aw, come on," he whined, jumping off her head and landing on the ground in neutral form. Soothsayer handed him his bags and continued walking. "Would it help if I told you my real name, too?" Soothsayer shook her head, but said nothing.

Beastboy gaped at her back, before running in front of her. "Don't make me do The Face. You know you can't resist The Face."

Soothsayer paused, furrowing her brows at him curiously. "What face?"

"Huh?" Beastboy answered, dumbly. "Oh, yeah."

And he promptly shifted into a kitten with a delicate little body, and insanely huge green eyes that glinted with innocent hope. The kitten mewed pitifully up at her.

Soothsayer half-smiled and shook her head. "That is truly sad, Bea…" she trailed off, staring at something ahead of them. "What's that?" She pointed at a small object sticking out from an upcoming alleyway.

Beastboy trotted past her on tiny kitten legs, as he peered into the darkness. His tiny nose wrinkled as he got closer and a strong metallic scent permeated his senses.

'Where have I smelt that before?' he wondered as he reformed at the mouth of the alley, crouched over the object in question.

"That is not what I think it is, is it?" Soothsayer asked, coming up behind him.

Beastboy shook his head.

What she'd spotted from down the street was a limp human hand lying palm-up on the sidewalk, and now that they were closer, they could see what it was attached to:

A dead body.

* * *


End file.
